The Edmonton Oilers have had plenty of uncertainty between the pipes this season. Going into the year with their usual tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, their early season struggles forced the Oilers’ brass hand to make changes.
General manager Stan Bowman made a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins to swap Skinner for goaltender Tristan Jarry. After only three starts, Jarry found himself sidelined with an injury, making way for Bowman to recall his insurance policy acquisition from the preseason, Connor Ingram. He would form a tandem with Pickard to hold the fort while the Oilers new acquisition recovered.
Having played down with the Bakersfield Condors of the American Hockey League to start the year, Ingram struggled but had NHL experience and had history playing as a good netminder. Luckily, Ingram proved to be a stabilizing force in the crease and despite some solid performances, Pickard continued to struggle overall.
This led the Oilers to roll three goaltenders once Jarry returned from injury but it became clear that Jarry and Ingram deserved to be the tandem moving forward. Now, as Pickard has lost his crease and finds himself on the outside looking in, his agent spoke out recently on the Jason Gregor show.
Pickard lost the Oilers crease
So far this season, Pickard has a 5-6-2 record with a 3.68 goals against average and .871 save percentage. It is not good enough, especially for a goalie who was already operating on thin ice.
It became big news in previous weeks as the Oilers placed Pickard on waivers, giving a team the opportunity to claim him for free. It was also a possibility that they did it to make him more attractive for a team in a bind to acquire him, allowing the acquiring team to send him down to the AHL without requiring waivers.
After this whole fiasco, Pickard's agent spoke up on the Jason Gregor show saying "He's a glue figure in the dressing room, Draisaitl posted on Instagram within seconds of him clearing waivers 'maybe the best teammate we've all ever had'... You can't deny the value of that when you get down a couple of games in the playoffs. So, I looked at it and talked to Stan [Bowman], I mean he's 9-2 in the playoffs, do we forget?"
He then later compared his playoff success to the team and Ingram saying "These guys have never had much playoff success, Ingram hasn't hardly ever played in the playoffs." Although he is not wrong in this instance, it is clearly an agent sticking up for his client.
There is an opportunity where Pickard can operate as the third stringer if he is willing to stick around with the club. There is even the possibility that the team needs to depend on him down the stretch as they have in the past. Hopefully this year the crease is much more stabilized come playoff time, though.
We will see once the Olympic break is over if Pickard becomes a bigger issue than it currently is. I would caution the Oilers brass from making a hasty decision and moving on from Pickard without a formidable third string option sorted out.